786 EASTERN COUNTIES VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 
some cases preceding the exudation into the lungs of serous fluid 
containing lymph, by which means the lungs frequently become 
attached to the sides of the chest. 
As I have previously mentioned the disease sometimes exists to a 
greater extent than at others. Occasionally we may go for a year 
or two without any very serious outbreak ; we are never, however, 
entirely free from it, and at certain seasons of the year it is more 
prevalent than at others. This may depend upon atmospheric 
causes. Uncertain and unseasonable weather frequently tend to 
develop it, quality of food and water, impurities of sheds, &c.; also 
the confinement of animals on board ship, &c. ; but whether the 
morbific matter is generated by each and every one of these con¬ 
ditions, or whether they merely act as exciting causes or bring the 
system into a fit state to receive the disease, is a question difiicult 
to decide. 
In this and other of the eastern counties I have found that it 
generally prevails in the autumn and early months of winter ; and 
I think there are satisfactory reasons why this should be so, as it 
is at this season of the year that farmers commence to stock their 
yards for the consumption of the root crops. A very large number 
of beasts are yearly brought from Ireland, and during transit here 
are exposed to many of the exciting causes I have enumerated— 
confinement on board the vessel, detention at ports or railway 
stations, and exposure in the railway waggons, at which times they 
are often improperly and insufficiently fed ; finally, the exposure 
at fairs and markets which, in all probability, they had already 
undergone before their departure from Ireland. Having experienced 
all these hardships they are purchased by some farmer (and taking 
the inferior class of beast among which the disease is certainly 
most common), and frequently turned upon the layers or meadows 
for a time and again exposed to the inclemency of the weather, 
they are then taken into yards, and the fattening process com¬ 
mences. Either before or soon after this some cases show them¬ 
selves ; one or two may die or be killed, according to their fitness 
for the butcher or the view their owners may have respecting 
treatment. Now, I shall have to speak of one of the most active 
causes of the propagation of the disease, and one which, in my 
opinion, we want particularly to endeavour to prevent, inasmuch 
as I believe it would reduce the number of cases more than any 
other thing. 
A farmer having lost some few head of stock by pleuro-pneumonia 
immediately resolves that he will make what is, in his opinion, the 
best of a bad bargain, and starts the remainder of his animals off to 
a fair or market, to be sold at any sacrifice, all the time forgetting 
that he is doing himself as much harm as any one else, by facili¬ 
tating the spread of the disease; for, in all probability, he is 
compelled to purchase fresh stock to consume the produce of his 
farm, and he runs great risk of the malady appearing among them, 
in which case he would be a heavier loser than if he retained his 
original lot and chanced what further loss he would sustain. But 
